Here is a YouTube video of the Turtle Island Quartet doing their piece "Model Trane", evoking the work and style of John Coltrane:
Thank you, Arthur, for this heads-up!
While we're at it- Jean-Luc Ponty, anyone????
Back to doing more auditions, and preparing for Friday's show on Rando Radio.
Peace be with you,
Glenn
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Funk Brothers, the Fab Faux, and then some...
Greetings from from the land of never-ending crisis. I guess at some point this program name will have to evolve. But it rolls off the tongue so easily... ideas anyone? Maybe I can turn this into a Rando Radio contest with a prize for the winning listener... gotta run this by Headquarters (or maybe "Hindquarters", whatever the bosses-nesses be called).
I had a pleasurable Shabbos dinner this past Friday with a bunch of wonderful people and things musical work into the discussions. I started gum-flapping about the greatest group (almost) nobody ever saw. The Funk Brothers backed all the songs that came out of the Detroit based Motown record label. You pick the artist and the Funk Brothers played the music from the nineteen-sixties until Mr. Gordy moved the whole kit-n-kaboodle to California and canned them. Here is a YouTube video with them playing with comtempory singers. All right, it's a link to the Youtube video. I've gotta do something about the learning curve. I strongly recommend the movie "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" to see the whole story of these people. You will never listen to any Motown record the same way after that movie.
The entity that I learned about (and had no prior knowledge of) was a group known as The Fab Faux. They are studio musicians that have made a mission out of performing Beatles music from original orchestrations (and sometimes working with the songs actual producers) to get it just right. While the voices are not spot-on, the music is absolutely uncanny. Here is a YouTube Video of them performing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".
They do live gigs and will be playing in the NY/NJ area in July, so I'm told. If faithful reproduction of Beatle music in real time tickles your fancy, check them out.
Speaking of faithful reproduction, the last group I will tell of this go-round is known as the Beau-Hunks. Their claim to fame (still available on Amazon as far as I know) is a CD of 74 minutes of music from the Little Rascals episodes. The got hold of the Hal Roach orchestrations and then got period musical instruments (read that- got brass and woodwinds, stringed thingies made in the early twentieth century) with the goal of having the modern recording sound as historically accurate as they could. I believe they were successful. You would do well to check them out.
That does it for now. I am going to follow the example that both my cats are giving, and do the nap thing. Maybe a glass of merlot to help the process (by the way, until you have had one of Chez Potter's mojitos, you haven't lived- I'm too lazy to do them high tech drinky thingie-dingies). Be sure to keep listening to RandoRadio- click here or the "now playing" area (Thanks to Treavor for that one).
Peace be with you,
Glenn Carella
I had a pleasurable Shabbos dinner this past Friday with a bunch of wonderful people and things musical work into the discussions. I started gum-flapping about the greatest group (almost) nobody ever saw. The Funk Brothers backed all the songs that came out of the Detroit based Motown record label. You pick the artist and the Funk Brothers played the music from the nineteen-sixties until Mr. Gordy moved the whole kit-n-kaboodle to California and canned them. Here is a YouTube video with them playing with comtempory singers. All right, it's a link to the Youtube video. I've gotta do something about the learning curve. I strongly recommend the movie "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" to see the whole story of these people. You will never listen to any Motown record the same way after that movie.
The entity that I learned about (and had no prior knowledge of) was a group known as The Fab Faux. They are studio musicians that have made a mission out of performing Beatles music from original orchestrations (and sometimes working with the songs actual producers) to get it just right. While the voices are not spot-on, the music is absolutely uncanny. Here is a YouTube Video of them performing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".
They do live gigs and will be playing in the NY/NJ area in July, so I'm told. If faithful reproduction of Beatle music in real time tickles your fancy, check them out.
Speaking of faithful reproduction, the last group I will tell of this go-round is known as the Beau-Hunks. Their claim to fame (still available on Amazon as far as I know) is a CD of 74 minutes of music from the Little Rascals episodes. The got hold of the Hal Roach orchestrations and then got period musical instruments (read that- got brass and woodwinds, stringed thingies made in the early twentieth century) with the goal of having the modern recording sound as historically accurate as they could. I believe they were successful. You would do well to check them out.
That does it for now. I am going to follow the example that both my cats are giving, and do the nap thing. Maybe a glass of merlot to help the process (by the way, until you have had one of Chez Potter's mojitos, you haven't lived- I'm too lazy to do them high tech drinky thingie-dingies). Be sure to keep listening to RandoRadio- click here or the "now playing" area (Thanks to Treavor for that one).
Peace be with you,
Glenn Carella
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Throat Singing and the Elk Thing
Greetings from the Land of RandoRadio. This installment of my ramblings is to clear up (or further muddy things up) regarding two recurring themes on my show. I warn you up front that you may just learn something here, and I am not responsible for the consequences.
Throat singing (or overtone singing) takes advantage of the entire human voice mechanism to create a note with the voicebox and then create overtones (harmonically related notes) in other parts of the voice path. It can sound like self-harmony or singing and whistling simultaneously.
I first came across this phenomenon while listening to Tibetan religious music. Later I came across an American blues singer named Paul Pena whose story put the hook in me. He heard throat singing on his shortwave radio in the mid-1980's and became totally captivated with it. Despite his blindness he persevered to not only learn about the musical form but to teach it to himself.
After more than a decade of learning and searching he wound up connecting with a group of people who took up his cause and took it a great leap forward. They made it possible for him to go to a land called Tuva, in southern Siberia on the Mongolian border. They documented this in a movie called "Genghis Blues".
As a sidebar, he worked to learn to speak their language in a very bizarre fashion. Since there were no direct Braille translations from Tuvan to English, he had to learn Tuvan to Russian (Tuva used to be in the USSR) and then Russian to English. He managed to communicate well enough with the people to enter (and subsequently win) a regional throat singing championship. He was befriended by Kongar-ol Ondar, a popular throat singer and (later) a statesman in their government.
I recommend the "Genghis Blues" movie and soundtrack (both available on Amazon.Com) and a CD called "TUVA- Tuvinian Singers and Musicians" on the WDR- World Network Label, #55.838. For reading pick up the late Richard Heynman's book "Tuva Or Bust".
The other thing I wanted to give voice to is the Elk Calling fixation I've had since March of this year. One day while trolling through the New York Times (the newspaper that wants to drive me crazy) I came across an article describing an annual gathering of people in Reno, Nevada. Their ongoing mission is to foster and grow the skills of Elk-Calling. People of all ages participated in this event and there was a competition to determine the best caller.
When I looked at the online version of the paper it had a link to the site that had the audio of this year's event. When I listened to it I was immediately hooked. I'm old enough to remember when the "song of the Humpback Whale) was all the rage especially when Earth Day came around. Clearly, this is the "Humpback whale" of the twenty-first century. Anything that can clue people in to the fact that critters preceeded us in this land works for me. And the elk calling seems to go with any kind of background music during music breaks.
If you google "elk calling" you will find a link to the International Herald Tribune link that has the story and the audio clips. You too can get hooked on this sound. Or not.
Enough damage has been done for now. Please be sure to visit our RandoRadio website by clicking here.
I appreciate your time in reading and listening. All of us at RandoRadio work toward bringing a wide variety of music to you with our own contrasting styles and personalities. Please help by spreading the word and helping us if you can. It's the listener-sponsored thing, you see. I'll have some other venting to do next time around.
Peace be with you,
Glenn Carella
Throat singing (or overtone singing) takes advantage of the entire human voice mechanism to create a note with the voicebox and then create overtones (harmonically related notes) in other parts of the voice path. It can sound like self-harmony or singing and whistling simultaneously.
I first came across this phenomenon while listening to Tibetan religious music. Later I came across an American blues singer named Paul Pena whose story put the hook in me. He heard throat singing on his shortwave radio in the mid-1980's and became totally captivated with it. Despite his blindness he persevered to not only learn about the musical form but to teach it to himself.
After more than a decade of learning and searching he wound up connecting with a group of people who took up his cause and took it a great leap forward. They made it possible for him to go to a land called Tuva, in southern Siberia on the Mongolian border. They documented this in a movie called "Genghis Blues".
As a sidebar, he worked to learn to speak their language in a very bizarre fashion. Since there were no direct Braille translations from Tuvan to English, he had to learn Tuvan to Russian (Tuva used to be in the USSR) and then Russian to English. He managed to communicate well enough with the people to enter (and subsequently win) a regional throat singing championship. He was befriended by Kongar-ol Ondar, a popular throat singer and (later) a statesman in their government.
I recommend the "Genghis Blues" movie and soundtrack (both available on Amazon.Com) and a CD called "TUVA- Tuvinian Singers and Musicians" on the WDR- World Network Label, #55.838. For reading pick up the late Richard Heynman's book "Tuva Or Bust".
The other thing I wanted to give voice to is the Elk Calling fixation I've had since March of this year. One day while trolling through the New York Times (the newspaper that wants to drive me crazy) I came across an article describing an annual gathering of people in Reno, Nevada. Their ongoing mission is to foster and grow the skills of Elk-Calling. People of all ages participated in this event and there was a competition to determine the best caller.
When I looked at the online version of the paper it had a link to the site that had the audio of this year's event. When I listened to it I was immediately hooked. I'm old enough to remember when the "song of the Humpback Whale) was all the rage especially when Earth Day came around. Clearly, this is the "Humpback whale" of the twenty-first century. Anything that can clue people in to the fact that critters preceeded us in this land works for me. And the elk calling seems to go with any kind of background music during music breaks.
If you google "elk calling" you will find a link to the International Herald Tribune link that has the story and the audio clips. You too can get hooked on this sound. Or not.
Enough damage has been done for now. Please be sure to visit our RandoRadio website by clicking here.
I appreciate your time in reading and listening. All of us at RandoRadio work toward bringing a wide variety of music to you with our own contrasting styles and personalities. Please help by spreading the word and helping us if you can. It's the listener-sponsored thing, you see. I'll have some other venting to do next time around.
Peace be with you,
Glenn Carella
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Crisis? What crisis?
At the risk of grasping at ever thinner straws, I believe that the "mid-life crisis" is a reasonable title for the program as it represents my reverting to an earlier place in life.
I'll grant you that hosting an internet radio program (on RandoRadio of all places) is not the stereotypical image one sees of such an event; it is usually symbolized by an overtly expensive red sports car, or by divorcing one's wife and keeping company with someone at least twenty years younger. For a number of reasons, neither of those options were open to me at the time I took up with the RandoRadio crew. Playing music from my collection of stuff seemed like the better option.
I had done radio in college and at a small cable radio station until about 1976. A lapse of over thirty years gives me a perspective I didn't have in my younger days, and perhaps leads to a greater comfort level with this kind of programming. Then again, I've been wrong before.
The greater crisis that we at studio 2B are working to mitigate is the lack of places where a musical "stream of consciousness" can flow. With more entertainment outlets being taken over by huge corporations there are fewer outlets where a free association of different musical styles can exist. In their need to supply commercial sponsors with targeted demographics, they will have playlists of fixed genres to reach those targets.
I think individuals are smarter than that. I feel justified in bringing a variety of music not just to my program as a whole, but sometime to each set (group of songs/musical pieces). A classical piece after a rock song after a Tuvanian throat-singing ballad is my way of shifting the musical breeze (although some may argue that such a schizophrenic mode may simply be breaking musical wind). Each RandoRadio on-air host brings their own mindset to the table in their own way.
We can't do this on a long term basis without your support. Please go to our website (in a spirit of unabashed promotion I have sprinkled hyperlinks throughout this post). Do what you can to keep us going and keep us growing. Please spread the word that you have found a safe haven for free-form radio that is presented by PEOPLE and not computer programs. That's right, we are just like Soylent Green! Kind of. Except we aren't crackers.
Next time- more on the throat-singing thing. Until then, please be kind to one another.
Peace be with you,
Glenn
I'll grant you that hosting an internet radio program (on RandoRadio of all places) is not the stereotypical image one sees of such an event; it is usually symbolized by an overtly expensive red sports car, or by divorcing one's wife and keeping company with someone at least twenty years younger. For a number of reasons, neither of those options were open to me at the time I took up with the RandoRadio crew. Playing music from my collection of stuff seemed like the better option.
I had done radio in college and at a small cable radio station until about 1976. A lapse of over thirty years gives me a perspective I didn't have in my younger days, and perhaps leads to a greater comfort level with this kind of programming. Then again, I've been wrong before.
The greater crisis that we at studio 2B are working to mitigate is the lack of places where a musical "stream of consciousness" can flow. With more entertainment outlets being taken over by huge corporations there are fewer outlets where a free association of different musical styles can exist. In their need to supply commercial sponsors with targeted demographics, they will have playlists of fixed genres to reach those targets.
I think individuals are smarter than that. I feel justified in bringing a variety of music not just to my program as a whole, but sometime to each set (group of songs/musical pieces). A classical piece after a rock song after a Tuvanian throat-singing ballad is my way of shifting the musical breeze (although some may argue that such a schizophrenic mode may simply be breaking musical wind). Each RandoRadio on-air host brings their own mindset to the table in their own way.
We can't do this on a long term basis without your support. Please go to our website (in a spirit of unabashed promotion I have sprinkled hyperlinks throughout this post). Do what you can to keep us going and keep us growing. Please spread the word that you have found a safe haven for free-form radio that is presented by PEOPLE and not computer programs. That's right, we are just like Soylent Green! Kind of. Except we aren't crackers.
Next time- more on the throat-singing thing. Until then, please be kind to one another.
Peace be with you,
Glenn
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
My Blog-Mitzva
"So get a blog" they sez. And here it is, a vein in the body politic that is "My Mid-Life Crisis" on Rando Radio. This place is for those of you who, having broadband access can take advantage of our "Free Form Internet Music That Melts in your Ears and Not On Your Desktop" and have yet another level of virtual interaction. Of course, you knew that already... I'm just reminding myself to get out of a base level of cluelessness (and thus achieve much higher levels of cluelessness).
On my first entry I offer the following proclamations and disclaimers:
1) I am new at this level of internets interaction, but civility is mandatory here. There are plenty of places on the web for sociopathic behavior. This isn't one of them.
2) I love all kinds of music, but I am always learning. This can be a two-way street and we can raise each other's awareness of all the "stuff" that is out there.
3) In the same spirit as my show, there are no user serviceable parts inside this blog.
Peace be with you,
Glenn
On my first entry I offer the following proclamations and disclaimers:
1) I am new at this level of internets interaction, but civility is mandatory here. There are plenty of places on the web for sociopathic behavior. This isn't one of them.
2) I love all kinds of music, but I am always learning. This can be a two-way street and we can raise each other's awareness of all the "stuff" that is out there.
3) In the same spirit as my show, there are no user serviceable parts inside this blog.
Peace be with you,
Glenn
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